HONEGGER PASTORALE D’ÉTÉ SYMPHONY NO. 4 UNE CANTATE DE NOËL VLADIMIR JUROWSKI conductor CHRISTOPHER MALTMAN baritone LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA and CHOIR NEW LONDON CHILDREN’S CHOIR 0058 Honegger booklet.indd 1 8/23/2011 10:24:50 AM HONEGGER PASTORALE D’ÉTÉ (SUMMER PASTORAL) Today the Swiss-born composer Arthur of birdsong on woodwind place Honegger Honegger is often remembered as a member more amongst the 19th-century French of ‘Les Six’ – that embodiment of 1920s landscape painters than les enfants terribles. Parisian modernist chic in music. How unjust. From this, Pastorale d’été builds to a rapturous It is true that for a while Honegger shared climax then returns – via a middle section some of the views of true ‘Sixists’ like Francis that sometimes echoes the pastoral Vaughan Poulenc and Darius Milhaud, particularly Williams – to the lazy, summery motion of when they were students together at the Paris the opening. Conservatoire. But even from the start he Stephen Johnson could not share his friends’ enthusiasm for the eccentric prophet of minimalism and Dadaism, Eric Satie, and he grew increasingly irritated with the group’s self-appointed literary SYMPHONY NO. 4 apologist, Jean Cocteau. It was soon clear that, despite the dissonant, metallic futurism of By the time Honegger came to write his Fourth works like Pacific 231 (1923), Honegger had Symphony in 1946, he was barely recognizable more respect for traditional forms and for as the former fellow traveller of the wilfully romantic expression than his friends could provocative Les Six. He had moved away from accept. Poulenc and Milhaud both dismissed any desire to shock or scandalize audiences: Honegger’s magnificent ‘dramatic psalm’ Le Roi instead, like Mozart, he strove ‘to write music David (‘King David’, 1923) as over-conventional. which would be comprehensible to the Pastorale d’été (‘Summer Pastoral’, 1920), is great mass of listeners and at the same time a far gentler work than any of those, yet its sufficiently free of banality to interest genuine warmly expressive melodic lines – without music lovers’. This can be seen particularly in a trace of the ironic distortion delighted in the cycle of five symphonies Honegger wrote by the young Milhaud and Poulenc – show between 1930 and 1951. The Third (Liturgique) immediately that Honegger is set on his own and the Fifth (Di tre re) in particular carry a path. The relaxed, slightly bluesy repeated powerful emotional narrative, coupled with figure that establishes the initial dreamy pace an almost cinematic immediacy, that at times suggests the influence of jazz, but the hints make one think of Mahler – a composer 0058 Honegger booklet.indd 2 8/23/2011 10:24:50 AM whose intense personal-dramatic style, heavily by the affection of dear friends for whom the charged with late romantic pathos, was the art of music still has importance.’ very thing Milhaud, Poulenc and Cocteau had set their face against most fixedly. Honegger wove specific tributes to Basel into the texture of the Fourth Symphony. The Fourth Symphony, however, is intentionally The central Larghetto, for instance, is based a less serious offering, and as its subtitle on a Swiss dialect folk song, ‘Z’ Basel a mim Deliciae Basilienses – ‘The delights of Basel’ Rhy’ (approximately, ‘In Basel, on my beloved – suggests, it is meant to entertain and Rhine’). Easier for the outsider to identify beguile the ear rather than to explore darker is the use of the medieval melody ‘Basler or more melancholic emotions. Honegger Morgenstreich’ – ‘Basel morning prank’ or ‘fun’, was responding to a commission from the which emerges jauntily on high woodwind influential conductor Paul Sacher, director of and glockenspiel at the finale’s final climax. the Basel Chamber Orchestra, and, as the title But what is much more striking is the element indicates, he intended to pay homage to the of new-found magic and sensuous richness orchestra’s home city and its cultural life in the in this work, achieved with an equally new music. But there was a more serious purpose level of sophistication. Honegger himself too, as Honegger recalled: acknowledged this, somewhat primly, when he wrote that the symphony ‘marks a definite ‘In the year of misfortune, 1946, we were living progress in craftsmanship, and contrasts well in a scarcely jubilant era. The governments of with what had gone before’. Like Messiaen the countries demanded that their subjects in his Turangalîla Symphony (also begun in pay for the consequences of the war. In the 1946), Honegger here offers his audience midst of this odious and stupid existence compensation for the prevailing drabness which was imposed on us, this symphony and deprivation of life in post-war Europe. brings hope, created by the prospect of The memory of such straightened times may temporarily escaping from this atmosphere, be faint today, but over half a century on this in my spending the summer in Switzerland music can still cause ‘delight’. [at Sacher’s home in Schönenberg], surrounded Stephen Johnson 0058 Honegger booklet.indd 3 8/23/2011 10:24:50 AM UNE CANTATE DE NOËL (A CHRISTMAS CANTATA) Honegger’s last major work was the modestly The organ takes over, with trumpet fanfares, titled Une Cantate de Noël (‘A Christmas to accompany the baritone soloist singing, Cantata’), composed in 1952–53 for the Basel also in French, the angel’s proclamation to Chamber Choir and its founder and conductor the shepherds of the birth of Christ. This is Paul Sacher. Suffering already from his last greeted by a quodlibet, or medley, of carols from illness, Honegger adapted the work from music different countries, in their original languages. that he had written early in the Second World The German ‘Es ist ein Reis entsprungen’, sung War for an abandoned project, a day-long by the children, is interleaved with the French Passion Play in the Swiss village of Selzach. ‘Il est né le divin enfant’, and counterpointed by The Cantata, first performed in Basel a week an exuberant Gloria. The German ‘Vom Himmel before Christmas 1953, is scored for solo hoch, ihr Engelein, kommt!’ takes over; then baritone, mixed choir, children’s choir, organ and ‘Il est né’ and ‘Vom Himmel hoch’ are smoothly orchestra, and sets a multilingual text. It traces combined with the German ‘O du fröhliche’ and a progression from dark despair to hope and the familiar Austrian ‘Stille Nacht’. joyful affirmation, before a final leave-taking. The baritone re-enters with the angel’s Latin After a slow introduction led by the organ, Gloria, interleaved with a solo treble singing the chorus enters over an ostinato bass, first the start of Psalm 117, the Laudate Dominum, wordlessly and then to Latin words from to its traditional plainchant melody – the Psalm 130, the De profundis. While the chorus source of the Lutheran Advent chorale ‘Wachet continues in wordless octaves at the same auf’, or ‘Sleepers, wake’. The whole Psalm of tempo, the orchestra takes off at double speed praise and rejoicing is then set in rhythmic in an angry march. A choral cry of ‘O come’ triple time, with the children’s choir and is expanded into a chordal setting in French trumpets adding the plainchant melody as a of the hymn ‘O come, o come, Emmanuel!’ Bachian descant, and a powerful concluding (divorced from its traditional melody), with the ‘Amen’. The orchestra follows this with another reassuring refrain sung by the children’s choir. ingenious quodlibet of carol melodies, which eventually breaks up into fragments before the organ brings the work to a quiet close. Anthony Burton 0058 Honegger booklet.indd 4 8/23/2011 10:24:50 AM HONEGGER UNE CANTATE DE NOËL Chorus 05 Ah ... Ah ... De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine; Out of the depths I have cried to thee, Lord; Domine, exaudi vocem meam. Lord, hear my voice. Ah ... Ah ... O viens! O come! O viens, o viens Emmanuel! O come, o come Emmanuel! En toi vit l’espoir d’Israel. The hopes of Israel reside in you. Nos lourdes fautes nous pleurons, We bewail our grievous faults, entends nos voix qui t’implorons. hear our voices that implore you. Children’s chorus Freu’ Dich, freu’ Dich, o Israel! Rejoice, rejoice, o Israel! Bald kommt, bald kommt Emmanuel. Soon shall come Emmanuel! Chorus O viens, parais lumière du jour O come, we await the dawn qui dois nous apporter ton secours. that will bring us your aid. Nous errons tous sans but ni fin, We are all aimless wanderers, O désigne nous le clair chemin. O show us the straight path. Children’s chorus Freu’ Dich, freu’ Dich, o Israel! Rejoice, rejoice, o Israel! Gekommen ist Emmanuel. Emmanuel is come. Baritone 06 Ne craignez point, Fear not, car je vous transmets une bonne nouvelle for I bring you good tidings qui apportera une grande joie: of great joy: Le Messie est venu sur la terre, The Messiah has come down to earth, 0058 Honegger booklet.indd 5 8/23/2011 10:24:50 AM dans une étable à Bethléem, in a stable at Bethlehem, vous trouverez couché you will find the Infant Jesus dans une crèche l’enfant-Jésus. lying in a manger. Children’s chorus Es ist ein Reis entsprungen A shoot has sprung forth aus einer Wurzel zart ... from a tender root ... Chorus (sopranos and tenors) Gloria in excelsis Deo ... Glory to God in the highest ... Chorus (mezzo sopranos and basses) Il est né le divin enfant, The divine infant is born, jouez hautbois, résonnez musettes ... play oboes, sound out pipes ... Children’s chorus Wie uns die Alten sungen, As our elders sang to us, aus Jesse kam die Art from the race of Jesse Mitten im kalten Winter In the midst of the cold winter wohl zu der halben Nacht.